Six Months of Progress on the Precision Medicine Initiative

In January 2015, President Obama launched the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), a bold new research effort to revolutionize how we improve health and treat disease. Precision medicine is about empowering both patients and health care providers with the information and tools they need to tailor treatment and prevention strategies to patients' unique characteristics.

When he launched the PMI, President Obama called for all hands on deck to continue the kinds of progress that are already beginning to transform the ways we treat diseases such as cancer. Patients with breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, as well as melanomas and leukemias, routinely undergo molecular testing as part of their care, enabling physicians to select treatments that improve chances of survival and reduce exposure to adverse effects. This is precision medicine in action. But there is so much more promise and potential to be unlocked – and we need to extend the successes we’ve seen to other diseases that affect Americans and people around the world.

Today, to mark six months of progress to advance the PMI, the White House is...